iSCSI

Internet SCSI (iSCSI) is an official standard ratified on 2003-02-11 by the Internet Engineering Task Force that allows the use of the SCSI protocol over TCP/IP networks. iSCSI is a transport layer protocol in the SCSI-3 specifications framework. Other protocols in the transport layer include SCSI Parallel Interface and Fibre Channel.

"As any technology becomes increasingly popular and widespread, certain pieces of inaccurate information begin to sound like facts. Moreover, as a product matures, it evolves by taking on new features, shedding old ones and improving functionality. However, many products continue to carry those myths as truisms even as the version count rises higher. Get the facts about vSphere.
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Evaluator Group worked with HP to access the features, performance and enterprise capabilities of the HP StoreOnce B6200 Backup system. HP labs and equipment were utilized, with testing under the direction of on-site Evaluator Group personnel. Testing focused on validating high availability features, performance, and application integration.

The VMware® vCenter Plug-In for Dell PowerVault MD Series storage arrays enables VMware administrators to perform a wide range of storage provisioning and management tasks themselves - without having to rely on external IT resources.

This white paper discusses Unisphere for VNXe. It describes the Unisphere for VNXe interface, and explains how an IT generalist can easily complete storage-related tasks using this intuitive, easy-to-use interface.

This white paper describes the advantages of scale-out iSCSI storage in four areas-cost, high availability and disaster recovery, performance, and management-and illustrates how SANs provide better overall support for virtualized environments.

Crest Animation, a full-service animation studio based in India, has been growing rapidly and expanding its market by working on full-length feature movies. In order to take on an increased workload, the company needed to upgrade its storage infrastructure. The company was looking for a storage solution that was robust and scalable, that would eliminate bottlenecks, and that could grow quickly. Read this case study to learn how Crest Animation implemented a scalable storage solution with a unified, high-performance, highly reliable infrastructure that is bottleneck-free.

The experts at IDC predict that external disk storage capacity will grow 50% through 2010. In this free white paper, they'll show you how to simplify managing all that extra data while lowering costs, by implementing unified storage.

With the advent of iSCSI as the standard for networked storage, businesses can leverage existing skills and network infrastructure to create Ethernet-based SANs that deliver the performance of Fibre Channel—but at a fraction of the cost. iSCSI enables block-level data to be transported between a server and a storage device over an IP network. An iSCSI initiator is hardware or software that runs on a host and initiates I/O to an iSCSI target, which is a storage device (usually, a logical volume) that responds to read/write requests.

Storage area networks (SAN) deliver consolidated storage and advanced storage management features. One advanced SAN configuration involves booting servers directly from the SAN, eliminating all locally attached storage, and improving server operations. Several server boot options are available. To select the right boot option for your environment, you should weigh the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Most storage devices support multiple SAN connections for performance and reliability, but in many configurations servers use only a single storage connection. This creates a single point of failure and potential performance bottleneck for I/O. Multipath Input/Output (MPIO) is server software that extends redundancy to the entire I/O pathway in a SAN, delivering fault tolerance, high availability, and better performance.

System reliability is a vital component in Storage Area Network (SAN) design that keeps your production environment operating and avoids data loss and downtime. But since SANs are built using both mechanical and electronic parts, component failures due to usage, environmental factors, or manufacturing defects are not uncommon. Even in completely redundant systems, controllers can fail, fans can stop operating, power supplies can burn out, and disk drives can degrade or fail.

Storage consolidation was a launching point for various new technologies delivering advanced functionality. The next generational shift that is in process will free storage administrators from handling storage provisioning for applications – instead, applications will be able to request and provision storage for themselves. While today multiple tools are required to add storage to your database, soon the database will be able to take care of that itself.